“I tried to, but you know. Teenagers.”
“What did she say?”
“She seems really mad at you.”
“I know.”
“What happened between you two? She said it was something you did.”
“She didn’t tell you, did she?”
“No.”
Jackie sighs, a sound of relief. “I can’t talk about this. Please, will you just give me some privacy? It’s something we have to work out by ourselves.”
I exit her house feeling bewildered. As I walk away, I’m aware she’s watching me, her haggard face framed in the window. I don’t know what blew that family apart, and clearly not one of them is going to tell me. At least now I know this isn’t a case of a kidnapped teenager. Instead it’s a case of a pissed-off teenager and a marriage in the process of disintegrating.
Just another day in the neighborhood.
As Maura looked down at the keyboard, she felt her heartbeat quicken, keeping pace with the allegro tempo the orchestra was now playing, every note, every measure, counting down toward her solo. She knew her part so well she could play it with her eyes closed, yet her hands trembled, her nerves drawing tighter and tighter as the strings and woodwinds called to one another. Now the bassoons joined in and the flutes trilled, and it was time.
She launched into her solo. The notes were seared into her muscle memory, as familiar to her now as the act of breathing, and her fingers moved effortlessly through the cadenza, slowing into the dolce, and then launched into the final trill. It was the cue for the string section to raise their bows for the tutti section. Only then, as the rest of the orchestra took over, could she lift her hands from the keys. She took a deep breath and felt her shoulders relax. I did it. Made it through without a single flubbed note.
Then the rehearsal fell apart. Somewhere among the strings, notes collided in a sour jumble, throwing off the woodwinds. In the midst of that dissonant scrimmage, the conductor’s baton rapped sharply on the music stand.
“Stop. Stop!” the conductor called out. The bassoon gave one final honk and the orchestra fell silent. “Second violins? What happened there?” He frowned at the offending string section.
Mike Antrim reluctantly raised his bow in the air. “My fault, Claude. I lost my place. Forgot which measure we were on.”
“Mike, we’ve got only two weeks till the concert.”
“I know, I know. I promise, it won’t happen again.”
The conductor gestured toward Maura. “Our pianist here is doing a bang-up job, so let’s try to match her performance, shall we? Now let’s go back to five measures before the tutti. Piano, lead us in with the trill, please?”
As Maura raised her hands to the keyboard, she glimpsed a red-faced Mike Antrim looking her way as he mouthed the word sorry.
He still looked abashed when the rehearsal ended half an hour later. While the other musicians packed up their stands and instruments, he approached the piano, where Maura was gathering up her sheet music. “Well, that was pretty humiliating. For me anyway,” he said. “But you made it seem effortless.”
“Hardly.” She laughed. “I’ve done nothing but practice for the last two months.”
“And it certainly shows. Obviously, I should’ve been doing more of it myself, but I’ve been distracted.” He paused and looked down at the violin case he was holding, as if trying to come up with a way to broach the subject on his mind. “Are you in a rush to leave? Because I wondered if we could talk about the investigation.”
“The Suarez case?”
“Yes. It really shook me up, not just because I knew her. But now Detective Rizzoli’s raised the possibility that the killer has his eye on my daughter.”
“I hadn’t heard that.”
“It happened at Sofia’s funeral. There was this man at the cemetery who seemed far too interested in Amy. And that worries us.”
The other musicians were already heading out of the auditorium, but Antrim made no move to leave. The door banged shut, sending an echo through the deserted building. Only Maura and Antrim were left in the performance hall, standing alone among the empty chairs.
“Detective Rizzoli hasn’t told us anything since then,” said Antrim. “Julianne’s so anxious she can’t sleep. Neither can Amy. I need to know if there’s something we should be doing. If it’s something we even need to be worried about.”
“I’m sure Jane would tell you if there is.”